One problem with an economic boom is that tax receipts generally rise and give governments an excuse to indulge in wild new spending programs that cannot be sustained when the boom ends. That, apparently, is now the situation facing Northern Virginia:

Local governments across the region are considering cutting spending or raising taxes in the coming year because of a decline in revenue growth caused by the housing downturn…

The difficulty in Northern Virginia is that after six years of double-digit increases in home values, officials are predicting little or no growth for the coming year. Tax revenue could creep slightly upward, but the increases are nowhere near the whopping totals of recent years, officials said.

Local governments in Virginia by law cannot run budget deficits, so to balance their budgets for the fiscal year that begins July 1, officials must make up millions of dollars in shortfalls by cutting spending or raising taxes.

The answer then is rather obvious — cut spending. Unfortunately, politicians running the governments usually pull out the “for the children” mantra. Having spent like drunken sailors on a shore leave during the boom years, now the school walls will crumble, the poor children will go hungry, books will be burnt to keep libraries warm unless the tax payers fork over more money. We all heard the sob stories.

Arlington officials want to cover the shortfall without raising the property tax rate, according to Mark Schwartz, the county’s director of management and finance. “We will not present a budget that says: ‘Here’s a gap. Let’s increase taxes to fill it,’ ” Schwartz said. [Snip]

Vice Mayor (of Alexandria) Andrew H. Macdonald (D) said of bridging the shortfall, “we can do that either by finding some more efficient way in making cuts or find a new source of revenue by slightly raising the tax rate. . . . My view is that we may have to change the tax rate slightly.” [Bold face mine.]

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This says it all:

This year, Webb beat Allen by 116,000 votes and 17 points in the region. About half of that margin came from Fairfax County, the state’s biggest place and an important symbol of the change in the state’s politics.

“Fairfax used to be the bellwether for the state,” Brodnitz said. “Now it’s considered a critical piece of the Democratic map.”

And should the exurbs around Fairfax go decisively for the Democrats in future elections (Webb carried Loudoun 50-49 and Prince William 51-48), the GOP will become less and less competitive. Now is the time for rainbow conservatism and stem the Democratic tide in the exurbs that are growing in money and votes.

It turns out, I was optimistic yesterday in my prognostication, but only by a little. It looks likely Sen. Allen will lose to Jim Webb, and Sen. Burns of Montana will lose to Tester. Thus the Democrats will also take control of the Senate in addition to the House.

Clearly, the election was not a victory for leftism in the United States. That leaves two explanations for the result, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One theory holds that the GOP went too polar to the right and conceded the center (h/t RCP):

“The story line really is that the Democrats are winning the middle,” said Democratic pollster Al Quinlan.

Veteran GOP pollster Bill McInturff said: “Iraq is front and center of this election, and people voted for change. The GOP base held — was motivated and voted — but the margins among independents and moderates [for Democrats] was too much to overcome.”

The other theory is that Republicans were not conservative enough and became like Democrats, a party of establishment power, big government and etc. (h/t RCP):

In assessing last night’s results it is important to note that it was not a defeat for conservatism; it was a defeat for Republicanism, or at least, what Republicanism has come to represent. In the past 12 years, Republicans went from the party that promised “the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money” to the party of the Bridge to Nowhere; it took control of Congress on a pledge to “end its cycle of scandal and disgrace” and went down in defeat as the party of Tom DeLay and Mark Foley.

Having abandoned its core principles, the Republican Party had nothing to run on this year, so its campaign strategy centered on attacking Nancy Pelosi — a questionable tactic given that, according to some polls, more than half of the country had never even heard of her.

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Dick Morris is not a moral or principled man, but he is not stupid about politics. He writes (h/t RCP):

But if you dig deep into the Zogby poll, you find an astonishing fact — independents are turning to the Republican Party while Republican base voters are leaving it!

Among independents, the percent that plan to vote Republican has risen from 15 percent on Sept. 22 to 23 percent on Oct. 11 to 26 percent on Oct. 24. While independents are still voting for more Democrats, it’s only by 38-26 compared with 38-15 last month.

But as the Republican Party has gained among Independents, it is losing its base. Republicans who plan to vote Republican in 2006 have dropped from 75 percent on Sept. 22 to 72 percent on Oct. 11 to 68 percent on Oct. 24! Obviously the impact of the Foley scandal has yet to diminish among the morality-minded Republican base.

I sense this is also true in places like Loudoun County where many “independent” voters like the GOP agenda, especially limited government and free enterprise (consequently, lower taxes), but do not care as much about morality issues as social conservatives do. In fact, “the base” in this area has been disaffected, even alienated from the Republican party structure for sometime. To wit:

Historically, the Republican Party is able to attract much more support from its base than the Democrats have been able to do from theirs’. But now Democrats are more loyal than Republicans. On Sept. 22, Zogby had 82 percent of the Democrats voting Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans voting Republican. By Oct. 11, party loyalty on both sides had dropped and only 76 percent of Democrats voted their candidates and 72 percent of Republicans backed their party. But by Oct. 24, Democrats had come back to their party and 81 percent were voting for its candidates while only 68 percent of Republicans were loyal to their ticket.

Independents might help the GOP for this election and “save its skin,” just barely, but this trend has the potential of making elections in areas like Loudoun those of “center (GOP) vs. left (Dems),” and goes against building an enduring center-right coalition of a conservative-oriented GOP.

For the base to forestall this trend, at minimum, it must turn out in large numbers next week.

My latest Seattle Times op-ed is online:

It has been about a year since I left Seattle for a Northern Virginia exurb in a fit of political angst, and the time allows for a bit of measured reflection about the change.

When I lived in Seattle, one of the city’s facets to which I quickly grew accustomed was the integration of Asian Americans into the city’s mainstream life. This was not surprising, of course. While Seattle does not boast a large number of Asians in absolute terms, they form the largest nonwhite population at over 13 percent of the total — a rarity outside Hawaii. [Snip]

Some of the same dynamics are at work in the fast-growing exurbs of Northern Virginia where I now live. The area has had explosive growth in the past several years, fueled by a strong economy, especially in the tech sector and the defense industry, as well as a business-friendly regulatory environment. What was once a sleepy rural area (perhaps akin to the outer Eastside of the Seattle area) now boasts affluent, ethnically diverse communities. [Snip]

The city’s life is overwhelmingly dominated by the industry of politics, which, unlike information technology, is an old business. It requires, by nature, discretion and even secrecy. Where trust and loyalty are at such a high premium, nepotism and clannishness are often rational responses, given that family and friends are generally more trustworthy than outsiders, however capable or intelligent.

Thus, it is not that there is significant racism against Asians. It is, rather, that the system erects a high barrier against late entrants, and Asian Americans tend to be late arrivals, particularly in political terms (a friend familiar with the entertainment industry observed something similar, and perhaps not coincidentally, politics is said to be show business for ugly people).

Read the whole thing here.

There is an excellent article today in The Christian Science Monitor about the differences between the Democrats and Republicans at the grassroots level (h/t RealClearPolitics):

The Democratic and Republican parties cultivate the grass roots quite differently. The GOP promotes its causes through naturally occurring community groups of like-minded people, such as conservative churches and pro-business associations. Democrats, however, often outsource their politics, relying on artificial, virtual networks and professional canvassers to evangelize their message and build their party.

That’s particularly ironic, because many Democrats oppose corporate outsourcing. There is nothing inherently wrong with their strategy; it is a successful method of contacting voters and bringing in money. But the repeated experience of painful losses on Election Day suggests it’s a flawed approach that’s hurting Democrats over the long term.

The Democratic Party and left-leaning political groups rely on outside organizations to hire young people who recruit members, collect funds, and contact constituents through quota-based pay systems. Since many hires don’t have strong ties to the places where they work, this approach to gaining support and getting out the vote fails to capitalize on existing personal bonds among like-minded Democrats.

These observations are right on the mark — as of today. In the past, the left, particularly communist and socialist groups, excelled at what is today called grassroots organization. Despite their flawed, and later clearly disproven, ideology, they continued to attract passionate members. Indeed, the very term “communist cell” evokes the organic, grassroots nature of their organizations (everyone involved in politics should read, for example, Mao Zedong’s “On Guerilla Warfare,” masterfully translated by Samuel Griffith; unlike poseurs like Che Guevara, Mao actually led a peasant communist organization to total victory in a long, difficult war and won power).

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Last week, the Washington Post confirmed the obvious . . . . that drivers in Northern Virginia and the D.C. Metro area generally, have one of the worst commutes in the nation.

Washington area workers are more likely to travel to jobs outside their home counties than commuters in any other region in the nation, according to a new study.

A higher percentage of Virginia residents live and work in different counties than commuters in any other state; Marylanders ranked second, according to “Commuting in America III,” a national report on commuting patterns and trends published yesterday by the Transportation Research Board.

The Washington region is second only to New York for the percentage of workers with “extreme commutes,” which the study defined as 90 minutes or more each way. Of the 12 counties with the highest percentage of long commutes, the region had three: Prince William, Prince George’s and Montgomery.

While traffic hasn’t really emerged as a major issue in the high profile Allen Webb campaign (they’ve decided to take the low road and focus on Senator Allen’s apparent penchant for racial slurs and Jim Webb’s fondness for pedophilia) it has emerged as an issue in our local congressional campaigns and will almost certainly be the leading issue in next years state elections.

As a resident and commuter in this area for almost 10 years, I have very definite opinions on the subject, having made the commute into D.C. from the McLean/Tyson’s Corner area in nearly every way possible.

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A Harvard graduate student, also a mother, laments the anti-natalist environment that is Cambridge, Mass.

I was amused by the piece. Having lived in blue urban areas like NYC and Seattle (where dogs outnumber kids), I can understand the sense of isolation a “normal” person experiences in them. But I also lived in Iowa where I saw nothing except cows, pigs and children… lots of them.

And one does not need to go that far. Right here in Loudoun County where I live, pro-natalist sentiment rules. There are births galore in my neighborhood (in fact, three pregnancies in the past year in my small block alone). Maybe, just maybe, the fertile shall inherit the earth, eh?

There are too many reports of conservatives acquiescing in a 2006 Congressional defeat, perhaps escaping into their fantasy that Republicans will somehow be “punished” for straying from historic principles, and that a consequently “cleansed” party can return to power easily in 2008.

Theirs is a perilous path to follow. Jim Geraghty in National Review Online addressed this line of thought last May:

“Your effort to re-conservativize the Republican Party in Washington by staying home this year will have the effect of massacring the actual conservatives and empowering the moderates who you disdain. Perhaps we can call this counterproductive maneuver ‘RINO-plasty.’

But that’s okay, the staying-at-home-conservatives insist. The GOP will win back the House and Senate in 2008, establishing a true conservative majority.”

Geraghty explained:

“. . . [w]hat kind of lengths do you think the Democrats will go to in order to keep power once they’ve got it? Does the “Fairness Doctrine” ring a bell? You think Pelosi and Reid wouldn’t try that tactic to hinder conservative talk radio? How about McCain-Feingold 2.0, with a particular focus on controlling “unregulated speech” on the Internet and blogs?”

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As I often repeat, Northern Virginia has experienced a tremendous demographic growth, particularly in the outer suburbs and the exurbs. An accompanying trend has been an increase of non-white residents in the area. Loudoun County, where I now live, is a prime example (many of my neighbors are ethnically South Asian or East Asian). Since non-whites tend to trend Democrat in voting, this has raised a concern among some Republicans that the region will increasingly vote Democrat.

However, the latest report from the Census Bureau that ethnic minorities have relatively high home ownership rates in metropolitan Washington area, including Northern Virginia, ought to give them a ray of hope:

Particularly striking was the growing number of Hispanics who bought homes in the Washington area from 2000 to 2005, many of them settling in expensive suburbs such as Fairfax and Montgomery. Across the region, Hispanics surpassed blacks in homeownership rates last year. [Snip]

Almost 100,000 Asians own houses, condominiums and townhouses locally, triple the number in 1990. Homeownership among Asians increased about 71 percent regionwide between 2000 and 2005. Asians posted particularly high rates in Loudoun County, where about 96 percent owned their homes last year. That’s far above Asians’ national rate of 59 percent.

Farhan Syed, a real estate broker in Loudoun, knows this phenomenon well. “Most Asians happen to be dual-income families, well-educated, able to afford a home,” he said. “Everyone wants the American dream.”

While home ownership does not guarantee voting Republican, increased home ownership correlates well with more Republican voting. Those who own homes are more likely to be married, have children and vote Republican than those who do not (see the last two pages of this study). In fact, the trend is even stronger at higher home value ranges.

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